MOA adds Dick's Last Resort

Dick’s Last Resort will open on the Mall of America’s fourth floor in mid-November, the latest step in the mall’s ongoing effort to add more sit-down dining options and rejuvenate the fourth floor.

Dick’s — a chain best known for its laid-back atmosphere and wise-cracking staff — is leasing a 10,208-square-foot space that has been vacant since Planet Hollywood closed in 2003, and it will add another 5,000 square feet for a second bar area on the mezzanine level above the main restaurant. In all, the casual-dining restaurant will be able to seat close to 400 people.

It will be the fifth casual-dining restaurant to open at the mall within a year. Cadillac Ranch All American Bar & Grill opened in November, followed by Sky Deck Sports Grille & Lanes in May and Buffalo Wild Wings in July. Stir Crazy Fresh Asian Grill will join the list in October. (Soul Daddy opened in early May, but closed the following month.)

Mall of America officials started a major quest to attract new restaurants in 2008, when it spent roughly $3 million to renovate and reposition the third floor’s south avenue. That area is now home to Crave, Cadillac Ranch, Buffalo Wild Wings, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and Tony Roma’s. The progress slowed during the recession when it was hard for prospective tenants to secure financing, but activity is picking up again.

Maureen Bausch, the mall’s executive vice president of business development, said the shopping center’s leasing staff is always seeking the latest restaurant trends because guests want more options and strong restaurants help drive sales for the mall’s more than 400 shops.

“If they’re shopping for three or four hours and they have to leave the building to find the food they want, then we’ve lost them,” she said. “If they can sit down for a nice meal or glass of wine and get rejuvenated, they may just buy one or two more things.”

Bausch said sales at the mall’s sit-down restaurants are up 12.5 percent year over year. Specialty food sales rose 16.5 percent and the food courts are up almost 10 percent.

“When you’ve got that many people walking by your door every day, it seems like you don’t have to do much more than just set the food out there, present the option and you’ll make money,” said Dick Grones, principal at Cambridge Commercial Realty in Edina. Irreverent and sarcastic

Dick’s Last Resort has 10 other sites in tourist markets such as Las Vegas, San Diego and Myrtle Beach, S.C. The nearest is in Chicago.

Its menu features American staples such as steaks, ribs, burgers, chicken, seafood and salads, as well as some unusual appetizers such as deep-fried alligator and sauteed crawfish. All dishes are made from scratch with dinner prices running between $10 and $19.

Dick’s, however, is probably best known for its “eatertainment” approach that caters to larger groups such as bachelorette parties. The staff is intentionally sarcastic and irreverent; in fact, the interview process for servers includes an audition to demonstrate how the applicants will interact with customers.

“It’s not necessarily the place for a quiet dinner, but it’s a great place to kick off your evening or wind things up,” said Ted Moates, CEO of DLR Restaurants, the Nashville, Tenn.-based parent company of Dick’s.

The restaurant’s decor is similarly quirky. The exterior of the space will look like a two-story beachside bar, while the inside will take on more of a Minnesota cabin vibe.

“If we hang a moose head on the wall, we won’t just put up a standard moose head,” Moates said. “It will be wearing Vikings horns and aviator sunglasses or something like that.”

Dick’s will have 30 televisions, including two 8-by-12-foot projection screens. There will be two full bars and a stage that will host live music on weekends.

The addition of Dick’s also marks a significant leasing victory for the Mall of America as it continues to reposition its fourth floor — an area that started as an energetic hub for nightlife when the mall opened in 1992, but was fraught with vacancies by the mid 2000s.

Two more tenants are “very interested” in the former America’s Original Sports Bar and Players Bar & Grill spaces, Bausch said, declined to comment further.

If those deals come together, the 163,000-square-foot fourth floor will be roughly 85 percent leased, up from just 46 percent less than three years ago. The mall’s overall occupancy rate is nearly 97 percent.